Dear Brotherhood of Steel,
I know what you did.
I’m not going to beat around the bush, that’s what the weekends are for--no, I’m going
to come right out and say it: you killed Sarah Lyons.
In fact, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if you killed Owyn Lyons, too. But, honestly,
he was old, so whatever. I’m willing to overlook it.
Let’s back up for a second and give a bit of a refresher on the important stuff:
The Brotherhood of Steel that we became familiar with in Fallout 3 was originally sent out
East to look for technology by the original Brotherhood faction in the west. With them
came Arthur Maxson, son of Jonothan and Jessica Maxson, who is the last heir of Roger Maxson,
the founder of the Brotherhood of Steel. Owyn Lyons, the Elder in charge of this contingent
of Brotherhood members, upon seeing the state of the Capital Wasteland, took it upon himself
to change the primary objective of their mission from “Find technology” to “Find Technology
and use it to better the lives of the local population.” THIS was a huge fucking problem
for some hardcore Brotherhood members. I mean, they have the word “Brotherhood” in their
title, you know they’re going to be all about following traditions. Anyway, enough
of them were pissed enough to fuck off and form the Brotherhood Outcasts, a splinter
faction residing in the Capital Wasteland that claimed to follow the “true” mission
and directorate of the original faction out west. Anyway, yadda yadda the main plot of
Fallout 3 happens and all through it, this conflict never gets resolved. Best case scenario,
the main protagonist shows up and fucks everyone up. But Fallout 4 brought us new canon.
There’s a terminal on the Prydwyn that mentions what happened between Fallout 3 and Fallout
4. Owyn Lyons dies pretty successfully, and his daughter Sarah Lyons becomes the next
leader of the Brotherhood of Steel. Then she dies “in combat,” and the Brotherhood
hops from one ineffectual leader to the next. Nobody wrote their names down because fuck
documentation.
Anyway, eventually, King Arthur Pendragon makes a name for himself and ascends to the
throne and unites all of Britain under his banner.
Oh shit I accidentally put that in the wrong place in the script. Um. I guess here’s
the part where I can talk about how Arthur Maxson is King Arthur, though, right? I mean,
I already dropped that reveal. STUPID AUSTIN. STUPID.
Anyway, yeah, it’s in the name, which is itself a pretty big and obnoxious slap in
the face, but we even covered in an episode of Hidden History that the Prydwen itself
is named after a ship that King Arthur himself sailed to Ireland in order to obtain the Cauldron
of Diwrnach. Guess he was opening up an antique store or something.
Anyway, the Arthurian comparisons are all over the place. He’s a young, sexy, idealistic
leader who under most circumstances nobody would take seriously, but makes up for his
youth with extensive early combat experience, unshaking ideals, a sexy beard, a strong vision,
leadership acumen, and a really fucking important last name. Also he was mentored by an old
wizard, wanted to fuck his half-sister (yes, I know Sarah wasn’t actually his sister,
but whatever, close enough), and is famous for having united warring states under one
roof.
But what does all this have to do with Sarah Lyons? I’m glad you asked, me.
It’s all in there already, we just have to put together the pieces. So let’s go.
Let’s start with the terminal entries, which honestly seem a bit bleached. This could be
because of an internal conspiracy and history being written by the victors, or it could
just be because the assassination plot was airtight enough that they didn’t leave enough
evidence for a scribe to take notice.
The first introductory terminal entry talks about the faction split between the Outcasts
and the Main Contingent, and mentions that there were folk who wanted to reintegrate
them in spite of their philosophical differences, which seems to indicate that support for the
Lyons philosophy was waning. Which is no surprise, given the way things were left in Fallout
3. The Brotherhood of Steel single handedly decided to shoulder the responsibilities of
maintenance and distribution of clean water to the wasteland, and it’s pretty clear
that they weren’t doing the greatest job. Plus, some members were bold enough even during
the peak of Lyons’ support to say they didn’t agree with the direction they were going.
There were Outcast sympathizers in the Brotherhood of Steel.
But Owyn Lyons was old. REALLY old. You can have patience on an issue when you know the
person behind it is going to die any day. And he did, eventually. Unfortunately, his
daughter took authority over the Brotherhood of Steel. Sarah Lyons. Young. Strong. Bullheaded.
Survived a fucking blast of nuclear radiation with nothing more than a saucy attitude to
show for it. She wasn’t going to die any time soon, not by any ordinary means.
But she “fell in battle,” Arthur Maxson later took control of the Brotherhood of Steel,
brought the Outcasts back into the fold, and began carving a warpath into the Commonwealth.
“Sarah fell in battle.” Fell in battle. An Elder to the Brotherhood of Steel gets
cut down in a fight, and gets one sentence devoted to it. Isn’t that just fucking strange?
Let alone that the circumstances that would bring the leader of an Organization as important
as the Brotherhood of Steel to the forefront of a fight are rare as hell. In fact, the
only time I can really remember seeing an Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel fight is
when the Brotherhood invades the Institute, ro when someone else attacks their headquarters.
How many generals do you know in real life who--shut your fucking mouth Preston--who
actually go into live combat themselves? How many kings do you see fighting alongside pawns
in a chess game?
Regardless, I’ll buy it. Sarah was pretty trigger-happy. But so what. She died. Who
gives a shit? Well, this is where Arthurian legends become important.
Uther Pendragon was the father of King Arthur, and the man who occupied the throne before
him. He fought in many wars, but was never quite capable of conquering and uniting all
of Britain. However, in the Historia Regum Britanniae, he was still a pretty badass king
nevertheless, with a LOT of folk who didn’t want him in charge, and were willing to do
anything to unseat him or see him beheaded.
Uther’s biggest wars near the end of his life was against the Saxons, a group of Germanic
tribes that were once his biggest allies. He fell ill during this fight against those
that were once his friends, but instead of losing, it just made him more of a badass,
because, I dunno, red bull or something. He even killed the son of his biggest enemy in
combat while basically having the plague. Anyway, the Saxons can’t beat him, like,
at all. So they poison an entire river near his camp. Uther drinks from it fucking dies.
Arthur eventually ascends the thrones, wins all the wars his father lost, unites all of
Britain, conqueres the Saxons, and goes on to found the first medieval antique store,
featuring the Holy Grail and the Cauldron of Diwrnach.
Granted, Sarah Lyons isn’t Arthur Maxson’s father, but she was his predecessor, one who
fought heated wars against those she once called her closest friends. She was unstoppable
in battle, like Uther, and a lot of people stood to gain from her death, even those who
normally would have called her an ally. And like Uther, once she croaked, the Arthur who
came after was...honestly kind of awesome for everybody.
We may never know for certain whether or not you killed Sarah Lyons, Brotherhood of Steel.
But the truth is out there. And I’m just waiting for you to fuck up so I can catch
you. Maybe it was all for the greater good, in the end, but you should still pay for your
crimes.
Sincerely, Austin
P.S.
Oh, look, Bethesda announced their DLC schedule. Awesome. Looks like the first one comes out
in March. That’s pretty sweet. Next month.
Wait. What? Season Pass Price jumps to $50 on March 1st? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURGH
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